An accessory which adds functions to a portable device by being connected to the portable device has conventionally been available. For example, such a technique that another controller as an accessory is connected to a connector provided in a controller of a game device has been disclosed. According to this technique, further various game operations can be performed by using two controllers.
The accessory disclosed in the background art as described above requires circuitry for communicating with a portable device or circuitry for information processing for generating information to be transmitted to the portable device, and such a configuration is yet to be improved.
An exemplary embodiment provides an attachment which can implement various game operations by being used together with a game controller or the like while it maintains a simplified configuration and a game system including the attachment.
An exemplary embodiment provides an attachment configured to be attached to a game controller with a camera. The attachment includes a housing having a support portion which supports the game controller and an operation portion in the housing. The support portion supports the game controller such that a direction of shooting of the camera is oriented to the inside of the housing and supports the game controller such that a field of view of shooting with the camera includes a first region including a first indication in the housing as a subject and a second region including a second indication in the housing as a subject. The first indication is located such that a position thereof is maintained regardless of an operation onto the operation portion and the second indication is located such that a position thereof is variable in accordance with an operation onto the operation portion.
At least one of the first indication and the second indication may be made of a reflective material.
The first indication may contain information for detecting presence of the attachment.
The first indication may contain information for specifying a type of the attachment.
The first indication may contain information indicating a reference position for detecting variation in position by the operation onto the operation portion.
The first indication may be located on an outer peripheral side in the field of view of shooting with the camera, and the second indication may be located on an inner side relative to the first indication in the field of view of shooting with the camera.
The operation portion may include a button mechanism.
The operation portion may include a rotation mechanism.
The operation portion may include a slide mechanism.
The operation portion may include a biasing mechanism which resists against the operation onto the operation portion.
The camera may include an infrared camera.
At least one of the first indication and the second indication may be made of a material which absorbs infrared rays, and a pattern made of a material which does not absorb infrared rays may be further formed in a region other than a region where the first indication and the second indication are located.
The pattern made of the material which does not absorb the infrared rays may be located as being integrated with at least one of the first indication and the second indication.
The pattern made of the material which does not absorb the infrared rays may be located between a plurality of the first indications or between a plurality of the second indications, as being integrated with the plurality of the indications.
The game controller may further include a light source for emitting light to the subject, and the first indication may have a lower reflectance to light from the light source than the second indication.
The camera may have a light source for emitting light to the subject, and an inner surface of the housing may have an intermediate reflectance to light from the light source between a reflectance of the first indication to light from the light source and a reflectance of the second indication to light from the light source.
The first indication and the second indication may be located so as to be different in depth position in the direction of shooting with the camera.
A game system according to another embodiment includes a game controller with a camera, an attachment configured to be attached to the game controller, and a main body which processes operation data obtained by the game controller. The attachment includes a housing having a support portion which supports the game controller and an operation portion in the housing. The support portion supports the game controller such that a direction of shooting of the camera is oriented to the inside of the housing and supports the game controller such that a field of view of shooting with the camera includes a first region including a first indication in the housing as a subject and a second region including a second indication in the housing as a subject. The first indication is located such that a position thereof is maintained regardless of an operation onto the operation portion, and the second indication is located such that a position thereof is variable in accordance with an operation onto the operation portion. The game controller transmits image data obtained by shooting with the camera to the main body. The main body performs first processing based on an image of a portion corresponding to the first region included in the image data and performs second processing based on an image of a portion corresponding to the second region included in the image data and a result of the first processing.
The game controller may further extract a part of the entire image shot by the camera and generate the image data.
The main body may generate region specifying information which specifies the second region as the first processing and transmit the region specifying information to the game controller. The game controller may generate the image data corresponding to the second region based on the region specifying information and transmit the image data to the main body. The main body may perform the second processing based on the image data corresponding to the second region.
The main body may further extract a partial image necessary for processing in the first processing and the second processing from the image data received from the game controller.
The foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the exemplary embodiments will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.